Security Heavy For Key Election In Algeria

June 06, 1997|By New York Times News Service.

PARIS — Algerians voted Thursday for what will be the country's first multiparty parliament since independence from France in 1962, but it was unclear whether the election marked a weakening or consolidation of military-backed, authoritarian rule.

Encouraged by state radio and television to "fulfill their patriotic duty," Algerians voted under the guard of about 300,000 security officers.

The country was generally calm, though there were reports that a bomb injured two people near Djelfa, in central Algeria.

Final results were expected Friday.

The election culminates a process guided by the military that has involved a tightly controlled opening to at least the formal mechanisms of democracy.

That process began with the election of retired Gen. Liamine Zeroual in 1995 and continued last year with the approval by referendum of a constitution that subjected the parliament being elected Thursday to Zeroual's control.

The Islamic Salvation Front, the now-banned populist party whose impending victory led the military to cancel the last elections in 1992, has dismissed Thursday's election as a sham.

But, weary of the fierce conflict between Muslim guerrillas and the army that began with the cancellation of the 1992 election, many Algerians appear ready to accept the modicum of democracy and vote, if nothing else, for peace.

The Interior Ministry said 56 percent of Algeria's 16.8 million voters had cast ballots by evening. The turnout was officially put at 75 percent in the presidential election and 79 percent in the referendum.

Western diplomats say the referendum was marked by widespread fraud. It was unclear whether the presence of more than 100 international observers-- there were none at last year's referendum-- would prevent fraud this time. The country is vast, and its rulers are sophisticated in the manipulation of power.

The government has put its considerable resources behind backing the campaign of a new National Democratic Rally party that is close to Zeroual.

It has taken on the mantle of the widely discredited National Liberation Front, which ruled Algeria's one-party state from independence until 1991.